The Circuit

by Ed Meza
As for the all-important international star wattage at this year’s fest, Viggo Mortensen, who toplines Third Reich drama “Good” from Brazilian helmer Vicente Amorim, showed up for a Tuesday press conference wearing a Flamengo Football Club shirt (one of Rio’s four major soccer clubs). Mortensen, who spent his childhood in Venezuela and Argentina, spoke fluent Spanish to local reporters. (Amorim, a big Flamengo supporter, is the son of Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim.) “Good,” a U.K.-German coproduction, unspools Wednesday as the fest’s closing film.

Bill Pullman made a surprise appearance for the premiere of Jennifer Lynch’s “Surveillance.” Pullman is in town shooting Jonathan Nossiter’s “Gringos of Rio” with Charlotte Rampling.

Meanwhile, a new pitching event organized by Steve Solot, former head of the Motion Picture Assn.’s Latin American office, won praise from Latin American filmmakers.

Backed by Spain’s Fundacion de Investigacion Audiovisual, support org Red IDEA and the University of Miami’s School of Communication, the Latin American Feature Film Project aims to discover new talent while creating business opportunities that contribute to the growth of the Latin American film industry.
The program invited 12 filmmakers to pitch their projects to a jury of international film execs.

Rosane Lima and Pindorama Filmes’ “S.A.A.R.A. -- São Jorge e o Passaro Celestial,” a story set in a Rio district largely inhabited by Jewish and Arab residents, won first prize – a trip to Spain for business discussions with potential European investors and partners.

In second place was Cecilia Amado’s planned adaptation of her grandfather Jorge Amado’s classic 1937 novel “Capitães de Areia” (Captains of the Sand), about a gang of street children living on the beach in Salvador da Bahia in northeastern Brazil, which won $8,000 from the University of Miami; Ondamax Films is producing.

On a final note, taking place amidst the world’s economic crisis, it’s not surprising that at least some international distribs at the fest felt gloomy. Many veteran sellers feel blinded by the ongoing digital revolution and fear that great tectonic shifts are upon us, soon to change forever the face of international distribution.

Leave it to a youthful and energetic Rio company to take the proverbial bull by the horns. MovieMobz isn’t waiting for the end of days and has moved to the forefront of digital distribution, hooking up 200 screens around the country to a digital network and serving as an arthouse distributor, even booking pics from its fast-growing catalogue according to the wishes of its online users, even those in remote towns.

At this year’s fest it picked up three screeners, including “Heridas”; Debra Pascali-Bonaro's U.S. documentary “Orgasmic Birth,” about the benefits, and pleasure, of natural childbirth; and Daniel Judge's doc "They Killed Sister Dorothy,” a look at the murder of an activist n